Pasadena Veterans Day ceremony honors country’s youngest vets

Robert Bollinger of Pasadena, an Army veteran from the Korean War, at Pasadena's annual Veterans Day Ceremony in front of Pasadena City Hall at Centennial Square. Monday, November 11, 2013. (Walt Mancini / Staff Photographer)

PASADENA>> On the 95th anniversary of the conclusion of “The War to End All Wars,” veterans, politicans and citizens gathered Monday to honor the men and women who served in two of the longest and most recent combat wars in U.S. history.

The resounding message of Monday’s event, which honored the country’s youngest and most recent veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, was that U.S. wars are far from ended, even nine decades after World War I, and the community needs to continue to support those coming home and reintegrating into civilian life.

“We know that lack of social support is the key factor in whether a veteran is going to make it,” said event speaker Harold Martin, a professor at Pasadena City College. “Our nation has not been at war for the last 10 years, our armed forces have been at war. The .5 percent have done what the 99.5 percent have asked them to do, and it’s time we make good.”

Monday’s ceremony, held on the steps of Pasadena City Hall, featured Los Angeles County Sheriff and Marine veteran Lee Baca, Pasadena Mayor and Air Force veteran Bill Bogaard, Marine veteran and former Pasadena mayor Bill Paparian and Air Force veteran Rabbi Gilbert Kollin. The ceremony concluded with a military fly-over at 11:11 a.m.

Baca said one of the best parts about being an American veteran is the bond and respect shared between members of the various branches of the armed services and the strength those experiences give each veteran as they move on in life.

“As I go forward in my life there isn’t a day that I don’t draw down to the challenges I had to overcome when I was in the Marine Corps and it allows me to literally feel that no matter what else happens in life ... I am a marine. ... Those feelings will never leave you.”

Society has diagnosed every generation of veterans with its own post traumatic illness, he said, but “it’s still the same head, it’s still the same heart” in each veteran, no matter which war he or she fought in. As a community, he said, it’s important to keep offering better services to help to transition back to regular life.

PCC’s program offers counseling services, a student cohort and special classes, like Martin’s own “From Boots to Books,” for student veterans.

Martin read the names of the latest Americans to die in the more than 400,000-day long war in Afghanistan, one of whom was just 19 years old. And it’s important to remember, he stressed, that even those who survive combat do not return home unscathed.

The No. 1 reason why young people enlist, he added, is to get a college education, and that combined with the emotional and physical toll of military service are all the more reason to offer such comprehensive veterans services at the community college level.

“To be disturbed and unsettled by disturbing and unsettling events is normal, to be horrified by horror is not the mark of a weak mind,” Martin said. “If these young men and women were not affected by what they’ve been through, then they wouldn’t be veterans, they wouldn’t be our veterans, they’d be inhuman robots, they’d be machines.”

And though the ceremony Monday highlighted younger veterans, those who served in wars past were not left out.

World War II Army veteran Gordon Reynertson, 90, said he enjoyed Monday’s ceremony, saying it was nice to be recognized for service so many Americans forget.